Internet – blessing or curse?
A discussion we oldies often have on the Rust is how we cope in the digital age. A friend of mine put it rather well “Our generation has had to go from nothing to word for windows overnight,” I regard it all as a challenge. When it goes well I get a certain feeling of pride but when it does not as happened yesterday I get incredibly stressed.
I will try to be succinct. Next week I am part of the annual Rust pilgrimage to the South of France. My flight dates are the same as last year. Polly, my p/a, had done the bookings with EasyJet on line and the reservations preserved in the apple wallet on my iPhone.
Yesterday I sent the reservation to the car service in Nice that collects us at the airport there. The lady replied that she could not find the flight reference. This panicked me. The first two problems were the reservation had no year on it and secondly I could not retrieve flights I knew I booked from my emails.
This might have been because I forwarded these to visitors to my apartment or you get such voulume of emails from Easyjet with deals. I arrived at my Spanish lesson in a sorry state and the first 30 minutes were not spent on tuition but in sorting the flights out. I decided the only option was to call EasyJet. I was repeatedly informed that it is a digital airline so my query could be better answered on line.
Eventually I spoke to an operator who told me I was not booked into the flight and duly did so. But for the query from the car service boss I may well have assumed from the reservation that I was booked in and presented myself at the airport.
Of course I must accept some blame for not deleting the ticket once used. However I have an EasyJet plus card which accords certain privileges but these do not number a dedicated customer assistant operator. Further it was not my error that my email was taken down wrong, even though all my details are on the system and received therefore no flight confirmation with details. When I raised this over the change of another booking the person said there was nothing that could be done. This is patently absurd.
By a strange quirk one of my guests is an old friend who made her name with a reference in a drinks advert she appeared in to an airport. I recommend EasyJet to her but the on line booking process was too much for her so she chose British Airways instead.
It seems to me that EasyJet have made a big marketing error. The EasyJet card is designed to create a sort of business class. I would imagine that it’s a different type of passenger from the one who is internet savvy and wants the cheapest fares. There should be a dedicated number to assist such customers with their problems. Ok, the cost is reasonable compared to other airlines but I happily would have paid more for a paper ticket I can keep in my travel wallet and a stressless morning.
